You may recall that almost a year ago, I appeared on a panel where I debated some Republicans about their election prospects here in California. Hm. Let’s see how I did as Nostradamus, versus how they did. Right. Thought so.

One of my observations back then, re Meg Whitman:  “If you can’t work your own press event, how well are you going to do when Jerry Brown shows up and asks you real questions? That’s a debate I’m looking forward to watching.” I think we’ve seen how well Whitman handled all of that, and yes, the debates were thoroughly enjoyable.

Bristol Palin’s forthcoming “memoir.”

Theoretically, the memoir form calls for self-reflection. I hope someone tells her that this doesn’t just mean looking in the mirror.

I’m tired of hearing people complain about Sarah Palin. Really. Because it isn’t doing them any good, and because it just feeds the Sarah Palin media machine, it comes across as counter-productive whining. So I’ll be curious to see if this will have any impact: “Ignore Sarah Palin Week,” which commences on February 28th. Please set a reminder for yourself.

Much as I appreciated the clip below, I’ll also be curious to see if Jon Stewart will participate.

The Republican party has an interesting set of opportunities and challenges right now. While a fervent grassroots movement helped them seize an unprecedented number of seats in the House, the seated Republican establishment doesn’t like a lot of these new people or their new ideas, and is figuring out what to do about it. It’s notable that John Boehner was a relatively late convert to the Tea Party cause, and now must reconcile its directives with those of his mainstream.

It was with this in mind, as well as the recent calls for more probity in public discourse, that I recently came across this piece from conservative writer David Frum. Personally, I’m not a fan of Mr. Frum’s credentials — to wit, chief speechwriter for George W. Bush — but I find a lot here to agree with. Key takeaway #1:  the danger of closed information systems.  What was the difference between Barack Obama the candidate and Barack Obama the president? A closed information system:  The former got plenty of input and personal experience out on the road, while the latter relied on an inner circle that believed its own perceptions. This sort of isolation calls to mind President George H.W. Bush marveling over how a supermarket scanner could magically ring up his purchase of white tube socks without the cashier having to punch in the numbers. From posits that the GOP is becoming an ouroboros, simultaneously feeding itself and eating itself.  I actually find all five of the lessons he seeks to impart to the GOP interesting, the other three being:  “the market” must be distinguished from “the markets,” i.e., capitalism is important, but the wants and needs of Wall Street should not be paramount;  the economy is more important than the budget, and so restoring employment is more essential, now at least, than budget-balancing;  “the welfare state is not all bad”; and “listen to the people, but beware populism.” You begin to see why among so many in the GOP he’s become an apostate. Which is unfortunate. Purges should be the exclusive province of the extremist leftist states (think “Soviet Union” and “China”), not of mainstream American political movements.

Here’s another sort of purge going on:  that of the political parties losing their moderates. In Arizona, three moderate Republicans have stepped down, citing venomous attacks from Tea Party rivals. In the November elections, by and large which House Democrats lost? The moderates. I wonder how all those people telling pollsters that they’d like to see the parties work together feel about this.

I predicted further fallout, at least short-term, for the Republicans from the Arizona shootings. (Even though — let’s be clear — they aren’t the ones who showed up and sprayed the crowd with bullets.) So here’s the latest:  Speaker Boehner is backing off referring to HR2, the pointless and doomed vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, as the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act.” In place of “job-killing,” he’s tried out “job-destroying” and “job-crushing.” “Maiming” is no doubt far behind.

For 20 years now, I’ve taught a private playwriting workshop on Saturday mornings. Occasionally, someone will wander in unannounced off the street — sometimes it’s someone in the wrong place, sometimes it’s someone who’s early for whatever is following me, and sometimes, just sometimes, it’s a strange person off the street, in which case I have to deal with ousting them, sometimes physically. This has happened only twice at this location, and once at a theatre in West LA where I was once involved. This past Saturday, someone came in and sat down and wouldn’t leave, and at first I thought this was another of those situations — only, thankfully, to realize my error, apologize deeply, and invite the person to stay. (I had sent him the wrong email, and so he thought he’d been invited.) With a little time, the situation was calmed and we all returned to the work at hand.

Then I got into my car and heard about the Tucson shootings. Which had me wondering:  What if the visitor to my workshop had indeed been deranged, as I mistakenly thought so at first? And how lucky had I been in dealing with actual lunatics previously?

I don’t have any great platform that I seek to mount on this issue, and I haven’t figure out anything more than anyone else has. What I have done, though, is collect some thoughts over the past five days:

1. While lunatics are predisposed to do whatever it is they’re going to do, the recent atmosphere of political hate speech is unlike anything I’ve seen in my lifetime, and is no doubt further firing them up. I didn’t like what I saw at the health-care rally I attended two years ago:  lots of deep, menacing anger. I was genuinely worried for Congressman Adam Schiff, and couldn’t help wondering what he’d done to deserve this. The same went for President Obama, but he wasn’t there, while Schiff was.
2. At the same time, I think it’s a very very very bad idea to try to legislate away free speech, as this Democratic congressman is proposing.
3. I know it’s a cliche, but I have to say it:  I grew up shooting guns, and I never shot anyone. Neither did my father, or my his friends, or his friends’ kids, or my brother-in-law, or my nephew, or my nephew-in-law, or my son, or my other son, or anyone else I know. We should enforce the gun laws we have (and it sounds like Jared Loughner slipped through the cracks, in yet another instance). And we should restrict semi-automatic and automatic weapons. But further restrictions on guns overall? It’s not going to happen, and I’m not sure it should. If I hit you with my car, you aren’t going to restrict everyone else’s access to a car.
4. Six people were killed, including the 9-year-old girl (and I cannot imagine what her parents are feeling about this), and a score of people were injured. Who wasn’t injured? Sarah Palin. Someone should tell her. Her self-serving sanctimonious defense is nauseating.
5. Someone who is going to take a hit politically:  Republicans. However you feel about that, bet on it, at least in the short term. This is why they delayed the phony “repeal” vote of the Affordable Care Act. Republicans didn’t create the Tea Party, and so far the Tea Party includes only one crazed gun nut, and it’s always unfair to judge a mass movement by the actions of one lone person. But perceptions become reality, and the Republicans themselves are concerned that they can’t control Tea Party activists. Which is why some Republicans are leaving the party rather than face them.
6. We would all be better off if we’d just tone it down.

How did several of the new “anti-establishment” Tea Party-supported Congressmen start their new positions this week? By hiring lobbyists and taking succor from corporate fundraisers.

From ShalomLife.com:

For the past 30 years the most famous of Jewish symbols was prominently displayed at Tehran’s airport and, embarrassingly enough, was only discovered now.

The building, which currently houses Iran’s national airline, Iran Air, was built by Israeli engineers prior to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. On the roof of the building the Israeli engineers left a massive Star of David which was hidden in plain view until today. The symbol was discovered by someone through Google Maps.

Ahmadinejad is said to be furious and has already ordered its destruction. If asked nicely, I’m sure the Israeli Airforce will be happy to assist.

In our college group, my friend Joe was a legendary poker player. Legendary for being the worst poker player imaginable. In the words of my late father as he was leaving our private game one night in a suite I booked at Harrah’s Marina in Atlantic City, “Joe shouldn’t play cards.” Joe is one of my favorite people — highly amusing, witty, and full of life. But no matter how acerbic, he doesn’t have the sort of killer instinct that makes you a good poker player. (One indication:  His favorite game to call is Indian.) He’d rather enjoy the company, and if that means losing enough to stay in the game, that’s enough of a goal.

I now feel the same way about Barack Obama. Except without all that fondness I have for Joe. Joe means a lot to me, but there aren’t millions of people counting on him.

When Obama sat down, the cards were in his favor. Yes, he inherited a crisis of epic proportions — but in that seat, if you don’t inherit one of those, you’d better figure one is on your way. Obama was dealt a huge numerical advantage in both the House and the Senate, and enough sense of crisis that he was able to put in place enormous change. But Obama now strikes me as someone so charmed in so much of his life that he’s ill-equipped to handle setbacks. The GOP captured one — just one — chamber of Congress, and now he’s folding every hand. The deal on the unemployment extension — in which benefits were supplemented in exchange for both an extension of the Bush era taxcuts and a rollback in capital gains — reads like a strong hand played weakly. (For more of the poker metaphor, check out this piece on Slate, which recounts in sad detail all the ways that Obama is throwing away his chips.) From reading Obama’s expression, I’d gauge that he doesn’t like what he sees in the flop. I’ve got news for him:  The turn arrives in January with those new Republicans, and he’s going to like that card even less. A little aggression at the table would help.

Today over lunch a friend and I were sharing our disappointment about John McCain. Today’s John McCain bears no resemblance to the one we believed we knew 10 years ago.

Then I came home tonight and saw this.